The Cost of Comfort

$5,000.
5K. 5 Large. 5 Gees.

In this day and age, that's not exactly an embarassment of riches.

The acquisiton of such, for most of us, would not change our lives significantly.

We could maybe pay off a credit card or two. Lay some new carpet. Buy a coveted gewgaw for ourselves, one for the spouse and maybe even one for the kids. Or perhaps pay for a nice family vacation, provided the family is not too large, nor the destination too far flung.

But we couldn't quit our jobs, or send our kids through college, or start a business.

And yet, put in the proper perspective, it's quite a windfall.

Consider...

$5,000 is roughly equal to:

~5 Mortgage payments
~10 months worth of groceries (give or take)
~25 seasons of Little League
~68 bottles of Chateau Margaux Pavillon Rouge
~100 tanks of gas (depending on fuel efficiency)
~100 months of high speed internet service
~167 pedicures
~208 tubes of Dior Addict Lipstick
~333 paperbacks

(not necessarily listed in order of importance)

In other words, it's not a king's ransom, but it's not chump change either.

And just why am I waxing philosophic about this particular sum? Well, $5,000 is the amount of money that my oldest child will soon be wearing in his mouth.

A mouth that may or may not see the benefit of a toothbrush on any given day.

A mouth at which small, hard balls are routinely hurled with all the force that the average 12 year old boy can muster.

A mouth that has been elbowed, kneed and head-butted, mostly by accident but sometimes on purpose.

A mouth into which strange objects are still occasionally inserted, despite the knowledge that said object might not come out the same way it went in.

A mouth that still has a good many years of testosterone overload syndrome to get through, during which, the likelihood of encountering a fist at some point is pretty substantial.

Still...I can't not spend the money.

If you saw my poor child's teeth, you'd understand. He was a thumb-sucker you see. I tried...LORD how I tried to get him to take a pacifier. He would have none of it. Short of amputating his thumb, there was nothing I could do to stop him sucking it.

And Jesus, he looked like innocence personified curled on his side, cheeks flushed with sleep, thumb tucked firmly into his lush, pink, pouty little mouth.

Until he turned 8 and then he just looked goofy.

But I understood. I sucked my thumb until I was a teenager. My parents did everything to get me to stop, but the compulsion was too strong. I sucked it even though they hid every scrap of satin in the house. I sucked it even though they painted it with that wretched stuff that was supposed to miraculously cure thumbsucking or your money back. I sucked it even though other kids laughed.

And the more they tried to get me to stop, the more anxious I became and more I needed to suck my thumb.

I didn't do any of that stuff to my son. I just didn't have the heart.

Not all of it is my fault though...there is a bright side. If you can call a congenitally recessed jaw a bright side. Still, it takes some of the blame off of my shoulders and I can't complain about that. This jaw thing is partially to blame for the degree of malocclusion. That will require an appliance called a "Herbst". He will also require a palette expander to repair his palette, which was pushed up and in from the pressure exerted by his thumb.

Well, not only his thumb.

He also did this weird thing with his hand and his wrist while he was sucking his thumb. He would hold his wrist in the thumb sucking hand, exerting even more pressure on his teeth and palette. I had no idea why he did that, but like the thumb sucking, it was a very strong urge. I had to buy him short sleeved shirts and pajamas, or ones on which the sleeves could easily be pushed up. On the rare occasions that I mistakenly dressed him in something restrictive, he would panic and thrash about, as if I had put him in a straight jacket.

Years later, when looking at pictures of himself, he commented about how he used to "smell his arm" while sucking his thumb. Weird. But my youngest sister rubbed her eyebrow slap off (that's Southern for, "all the way") while sucking her thumb so I suppose he comes by his erm...quirk...honestly.

He will also need headgear, which he will have to wear at least 12 hours a night. I can't tell you how I look forward to that battle.

From beginning to end, we are looking at about 36 months, possibly a little more, depending on how well he responds to the therapy, and how dedicated he is about wearing it.

But you know what? Part of me is really excited.

I needed braces as a child, and I didn't get them. My problems weren't nearly so severe, and my parents just didn't have the money. But I have always been self-conscious of my teeth and that's a terrible thing to live with amid all the other really horrifying crap that happens when you're a teenager.

He's going to have a beautiful smile. I'll make sure of it.

So...is there a point here? Ummmm....probably.

When we walked in to the orthodontist's office for a consultation he took one look at Pre-Pubescent One and said wryly, but not unkindly "Thumb sucker, eh?" I just nodded my head morosely. Then he said, "What about....10?" I said, "Eight, actually." I was absurdly happy to be able to refute his guess.

I told him about trying to get him to take a pacifier. I expected recriminations, honestly. But what he said surprised me.

"Welllllllllll. It's hard to get a kid who's really determined to suck his thumb to stop, unless you want to resort to torture. It's right there on the end of his hand, afterall. You can't really take it away or wean him off it can you?"

I felt better, somehow.

So I guess my point could be that we Moms heap enough guilt on our own heads without borrowing any more.

Or it could be that if you can kindly and gently encourage your little one to take a paci or give up the thumb, you just might find yourself 208 lipsticks richer for it.

Or even that....while 5 Large might be the cost of comfort, it's also the price of self-confidence.

I consider it quite a bargain.